Marathi is the language spoken by the native people of
Maharashtra. Marathi belongs to the group of Indo-Aryan languages
which are a part of the larger of group of Indo-European languages,
all of which can be traced back to a common root. Among the
Indo-Aryan languages, Marathi is the southern-most language. All of
the Indo-Aryan languages originated from Sanskrit. Three Prakrit
languages, simpler in structure, emerged from Sanskrit. These were
Saurseni, Magadhi and Maharashtri. Marathi is said to be a
descendent of Maharashtri which was the Prakrit spoken by people
residing in the region of Maharashtra.

The odyssey of written Marathi begins from 11th century AD
from stone inscriptions and copper plates. Long before this,
Marathi must have been spoken by the people living in the region.
The earliest reference to spoken Marathi is found in the 8th century
poem "kuvalaymAlA" of Udyotansuri. Marathi was the court
language during the reign of the Yadava Kings. There are various
stone inscriptions in Marathi found at Akshi in Raigad (former
Colaba) district, Patan, Pandharpur, Dive-Agra etc. The most famous
among these is the one found at the bottom of the statue of
Gomateshwar (Bahubali) at SravaN BeLgoLa in Karnataka. This
inscription goes like 'ChAmuNDrAye karaviyale, GangarAye suttAle
karaviyale' which gives some information regarding the sculptor of
the statue and the king who had it constructed.

The saint poet JNAneshwar gave a higher status to Marathi by
bringing the sacred Geeta from Sanskrit to Marathi. The holy book
was written in Sanskrit and was not easily accessible to the common
Marathi speaking person. JNaneshwar wrote the book popularly known
as JNaneshwarI in which he explains the Geeta in Marathi with his
own rich poetic style. He proudly said about Marathi that 'MAjhA
MarAThAchi bolu kavatuke, amRitAtehi paijA jinke, aisI akshare
rasike meLavIn ' which means that 'I will speak my Marathi
(language) only with pride and I will give such Marathi words to the
ardent listeners which will even win bets against the nectar (amRit).'

The script currently used in Marathi is called 'bALbodh' which is a
modified version of Devnaagari script. Earlier, another script
called 'moDI' was in use till the time of the Peshwas(18th century).
This script was introduced by HemADpanta, a minister in the court of
the Yadava kings of Devgiri (13th century). This script looked more
like today's draviDian scripts and offered the advantage of greater
writing speed because the letters could be joined together. Today only the
Devnaagari script is used which is easier to read but does not have
the advantage of faster writing.

The Alphabets

Marathi script consists of 16 vowels and 36 consonents making a
total of 52 alphabets.

Vowels

The vowels are grouped in two groups. The first group consists of 12
vowels as follows:

a aa(A) i ii(I) u uu(U) e ai o au aM aH

The first 10 vowels are very widely used. The last two are less
commonly used.

The second group consists of the 4 vowels : R^i R^I L^i L^I
of which the vowels R^I and L^I are entirely extinct today.
The vowel L^i is found only in the word 'kL^iptee'(meaning a clever
idea) which is also a tongue-twister and can explain the near
extinction of these vowels. The vowel R^i still finds use in words
like R^ishI (sage), R^itU (season) etc. But in Marathi, it is
pronounced more like 'ru'(r is a consonent)which differs
significantly from its original Sanskrit pronunciation.

Consonents

Out of the 36 consonents, first 25 are divided into 5 groups, each
containing 5 letters. This classification is based on their
pronunciation. The last letter in each group requires 'nasal'
pronunciation and is called 'anunAsik'(nAsikA = nose).

The first group of 5 consonents consists as follows:

k kh g gh N^

These letters are called 'kaNthya'(kaNtha = throat) meaning that
these are pronounced from the throat. The last letter N^(anunAsik)
finds its only use in the word 'vAN^may'(meaning literature),
otherwise it is also extinct. However, when a nasal sound preceeds
any of the other 4 letters of this group, the anusvaara actually
represents this letter. For example, aN^ka (number), paN^kha (wing),
raN^ga (color) or saN^gha (union)

The second group of 5 consonents consists as follows:

ch chh j jh JN

These are called 'mUrdhanya' because they are pronounced by touching
the tongue to 'mUrdhanI' which a part of the upper jaw between the
roof and the teeth. The last letter JN is entirely extinct but
appears in nasal sounds before the other four alphabets. For ex.,
saJNcha (set), gaJNa (rust), jhuJNa (combat).

The letters ch, j and jh of this group are pronounced in two ways
and this is peculiar to Marathi alone. One of them is a palatal
affricate (a mUrdhanya) and the other one is a dental affricate (or
a dantya, danta = teeth). This is a striking feature of the Marathi
phonological system alone. The contrast between the two sounds is
noticed when they appear before the vowels a and aa. For ex.
palatal: chaar (four), jag (world),
dental: chaaraa (fodder), jaag (awakening), jaD (heavy), jharaa (stream)

Even today, there is some confusion among the Marathi speaking
people regarding a few words as to which sound (palatal or dental)
is the correct one. Examples of such words are :chakalI (a food
item), jaroor (need), chaadar (a blanket) etc.
However, the rules for these sounds are well defined when they appear
before other vowels. Palatal affricates occur before the vowels i, ii
e, ai and au (Ex. chivaT, chain, chev, chayrya, jevaN, jiiv, chiir, zhiij, zep
etc.) whereas dental affricates occur before the vowels u, uu and o
(Ex. chuuk, churaa, jugaar, jor, chor, zop, zoLii etc.)
But there is no means of distinguishing these two distinct sounds in
the script. Hence while reading Marathi, you really have to know
where the palatal affricates occur and where do the dental
affricates occur. This makes it difficult for a non-Marathi person
to read or speak in Marathi because the dental affricates for these letters
are almost absent in other languages. The dental affricate for the
letter 'jh' is somewhat closer to the English sound for 'z'.

The third group of 5 consonents consists as follows:

T Th D Dh N

These are called 'taalavya'(TaaLU = palate or roof of the mouth)
as they are pronounced by touching the tongue to the palate. The
anunAsik 'N' of this group is very much used independently as well
as always appears in nasal sound before the other 4 letters.
For ex. ghaNTA (bell), kaNTha (throat), bhANDaN (quarrel) etc.

The fourth group of 5 consonents consists as follows:

t th d dh n

These are called 'dantya'(danta = teeth) because the tongue touches
the teeth while pronouncing these. These are 'softer' versions of
letters of the third group. The first sound 't' is absent in
English. The sounds 'th, d and dh' are somewhat similar to the sound
'th' in throat, that and this respectively. Again the anunAsik 'n'
is very commonly used and also appears in nasal sounds before the
other four. For ex. santa (saint), pantha (sect), manda (slow),
gandha (smell) etc.

The fifth group of 5 consonents consists as follows:

p ph b bh m

These are called 'aushThya' letters (aushTha = lips) since they are
pronounced by touching the lips together. The second letter in this
group 'ph' is originally an 'aushThya' letter but with influence of
English has got somewhat modified to a form similar to a 'dantya'
letter. Now a days, many people pronounce it in the same way as the
English letter 'F' which is quite different from the original 'ph'.
Again the anunAsik 'm' is widely used and also appears in nasal
sounds before the other 4 letters. For ex., sampa (strike), gumphaa
(cave), pratibimba (reflection), sumbha (rope) etc.

Among these five groups the second and the fourth letters in each
group are 'aspirated' forms (with 'h' sound added) of the first and
the third letters respectively. Another interesting thing to note is
that if the nose is blocked (by cold) then the anunAsik (fifth
letter) in each group gets replaced by the third letter in the same
group.

The remaining eleven consonents are:

y r l v sh shh s h L ksh GY/Dnya shri

The pronunciation of these requires a combination of usages of
tongue mentioned earlier.

Among these the Marathi 'r' is much 'harder' than the English sound
of 'r'. Also this consonent has a pronunciation very close to the
vowel R^i. When combined with other consonents, this letter is
represented by four different distinct forms.

The sounds 'sh','shh' and 's' are very similar. The letter 'shh'
finds very limited use, only in words directly taken from Sanskrit.
The sound 'h' is called 'mahaprAN'(maha = big, prAN = soul)
The letter 'L' has sound similar to 'l' but is a tongue twister for
North Indian speakers. This letter is very abundant in Marathi as it
is very commonly used in many nouns and verbs. Sounds similar to 'L'
are found in Gujarati and many South Indian languages.
The pronunciation of the last letter 'GY' as 'DNYA' is peculiar to
Marathi alone. The last two letters 'ksh' and 'dnya' have also
limited use.

Vowels are combined with consonents in forming syllables which
ultimately form a word. This is shown in the script by special
diactric marks. Each vowel has a characteristic mark, such as 'kAnA'
for 'aa', 'velANTI' for 'i' and 'ii', 'ukAr' for 'u' and 'uu' and
single or double 'mAtrA' to indicate 'e,ai, o and au'. 'anuswAr'
indicates a nasal (anunAsik) or the vowel 'aM' and a 'visarga'
indicates 'aH'. Syllables which involve 'i' and 'u' are called
'rhasva' meaning that the pronunciation is short whereas syllables
involving 'ii' and 'uu' are the corresponding 'diirgha' forms which
require 'stretched' pronunciation. There are two separate marks to
indicate 'rhasva' and 'deergha'. These are helpful in knowing where
the stress comes in pronouncing a word.

Marathi has a complex system of signs to indicate consonent clusters
or 'jodAkshare'. Particularly for the letter 'r' when combined with
other consonents, there are 4 different marks in the script
depending on the usage. The consonent clusters which are difficult
to pronounce are the 'aspirated' forms of N, n and m (mhaNUn, nhAN,
kaNheri etc.) and of r,l.v (tarhA, kolhA, kevhA).
Two different words are joined together if the second word starts
from a vowel. This is referred to as a 'sandhi'(combination). For
example, 'ati+uttam' gives the word 'atyuttam'. There are certain
rules for 'sandhi' which need to be followed in making such word
combinations. The other method of combining words is referred to as
'samAs' and there are no fixed rules for making a 'samAs'.(samAs
literally means margin). When the second word starts with a
consonent, a sandhi can not be formed, but a samAs can be formed.
For example, mIth-bhaakar (salt & bread), udyogpatI (businessman),
ashtabhujA (one with eight hands, a godess) etc. There are different
names given to each type of samAs.

Suffixes, equivalent to prepositions in English, are attached to
words to indicate relation of the noun (subject or object) with the
verb. These are referred to as 'vibhaktI pratyay' and there are
eight such vibhaktI in Marathi. The form of the original word
changes when such a suffix is attached to the word and the new,
modified form is referred to as 'sAmAnya rUp' of the original word.
For example, the word 'ghoDA'(a horse) gets transformed into
'ghODyAvar' (on the horse) when the suffix 'var'(on/above) is
attached to it.

Marathi preserves the neuter gender found in Sanskrit. There
are 3 genders in Marathi - pulliN^ga (masculine),
striiliN^ga (feminine) and napumsakliN^ga (neuter). Most of the
times, the masculine proper nouns end with 'a','u' or occasionally
with 'i' whereas the feminine proper nouns end with 'aa','ii' or
'uu'. There may be some exceptions to this rule. But there is no
such rule for common nouns. Nouns such as taal (rhythm), paal
(lizard) and saal (year or outer covering of a fruit) all sound
similar but they are of masculine, feminine and neuter gender
respectively. The word 'veL'(meaning time or time period) is
sometimes used as masculine gender and sometimes as feminine gender.

The other major complication in Marathi is that plurals, verbs
and adjectives change according to gender. For example, KaavaLaa
(crow) is a masculine word whereas chimaNii (sparrow) is a feminine
word. So it will be kaavaLaa uDaalaa (crow flew) whereas chimaNii
uDaalii (sparrow flew).

There are singular nouns and plural nouns. The dwivachan
found in Sanskrit representing two things together, is lost in
Marathi. Sometimes plurals are the same as singular nouns. For
example, waagh (tiger) or mor (peacock). For things representing a
group, the plurals are usually the same as singular nouns. For ex,.
daat (teeth), kes (hair) etc. There are certain rules depending on
the gender. For example, kaavaLaa - kaavaLe, maasaa - maase
(masculine), chimaNee -chimaNyaa, paal-paalii (feminine),
phool - phule (neuter) etc. Plurals are also used while addressing
elderly people to show respect and this is referred to as
'aadaraathii anekvachan'.

There are three types of voices in Marathi which are referred to as
'Prayog'.

Kartarii prayog refers to a sentence construction in which
the verb changes according to the subject (or kartaa) which is same
as the active voice in English. For example, Raam mhaNato (Raam says),
Raam aambaa khaato (Raam eats a mango) etc.

KarmaNii prayog refers to a sentence construction in which the verb
changes according to the object (karma) This is same as the passive
voice in English. For ex. Raamaane aambaa khallaa.
There are examples in which apparently there is no object but still
it is a 'karmaNii' prayog. For ex. Raamaane saangitale. (Ram told)
But if we put some kind of object in this sentence such as nirop
(message) or mantra (hymns) then the verb changes and the 'karmaNii'
prayog becomes evident.

Bhaave prayog refers to a verb which
does not change according to either the subject or the object.
Constructions involving order (aadnyaartha) or suggestions
(vidhyartha) fall in this category. For example,
1.Mulaanii roj sakaaLii lavkar uthaave (Children should get up early
in the morning every day, suggestions)
2. Maajha nirop tyaala jaaun saang. (Give my message to him)
This type of voice is not found in English.

Pronouns in Marathi are similar to the ones in English. There are
three 'persons' or 'purushh'.

Pratham purushh (first person) includes mI (I), aamhI (we) and
aapaN(us- me & you). 'aamhi' does not include the person you are
talking to but 'aapaN' includes that person.

Dwitiya purushh (second person) includes tuu (you) and tumhi
(you-plural) 'tumhi' could be used for a single person to show
respect. Use of 'aapaN' in place of 'tumhi' is considered very
formal and is quite rare.

Trutiya purushh (third person) includes to (he), tii (she) and te
(it). The plural form for masculine gender is again 'te' which could
also be used for a single person to show respect. The plural for
feminine gender is 'tyaa' and for neuter gender is 'tee'. In English
all of these (te, tyaa, tee) are replaced by they as there is no
distinction among different genders.

Verbs - In Marathi, there are supportive verbs equivalent to various
forms of 'to be' in English. In spoken Marathi, these verbs usually
combine with the main verb to form a single word but they are
written separately. For example, 'disat aahe' in written Marathi
becomes 'disatay' in spoken Marathi. Many verbs which end with
'e' are pronounced with an 'a' sound in the end which is indicated by an
anuswaar in written Marathi. For example, jhaale -jhaala or kele
-kela etc. However, in formal text these are written as 'jhaale',
'kele' etc.

Most of the verbs and adjectives change according to gender and
whether the noun is a plural or a singular. In addition to the
nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, there are 'avyaye'
meaning words which are not 'spent' or which do not change their
form when used in any sentence. These include conjugations such as
'aaNi','va'(meaning 'and') paN, kintu, parantu (meaning 'but') or
exclamations such as 'ababa', 'arere','waa' etc.

Marathi has been mainly derived from Sanskrit and majority
of words found in Marathi are Sanskrit-based. These are divided
into two categories:(1) tatsam or words taken directly from Sanskrit
such without any change such as vidyaa (education), dishaa (direction)
kavii (poet), van (jungle), vichaar (thought), mitra (friend) etc.
and (2) tadbhav or words which have undergone some change from their
original Sanskrit form such as, bahiiN (sister) based on bhaginii,
hattii (elephant) from hastii, waagh (tiger) based on wyaaghra

Other than Sanskrit, Marathi has also been influenced by the
languages of its neighboring states which are kannad (state of Karnataka) and
telugu (state of Andhra Pradesh). The words of kannad origin in Marathi are
adakittaa, guDhii. kirkoL etc. whereas words of telugu origin include
anaarasaa, gherii, kiduk-miduk etc.

Marathi has absorbed words from the languages of different people who
ruled India at different times. During the time of the Mughal rulers, lot of
words of Persian, Arabic and Turkish origin entered Marathi. These include
shahar (city), baajaar (market), dukaan (shop), hushaar (clever),
kaagad (paper), jamin (land), darvajaa (door), meherbaani, mujaraa, maafii etc.
Such words form a large portion of Marathi vocabulary.

The portuguese also influenced Marathi through words such as baTaaTaa
(potato), bashii (saucer), pagaar (salary), istrii (iron) etc. which are very
common in Marathi. And of course during the British rule, lot of English words
were accepted which have become an inherent part of today's Marathi. These
include pen, pencil, cake, cycle, boot, rubber, plastic etc. These words also
indicate a change in lifestyle and the influence of other cultures on the
Marathi people.

Although it is debatable whether konkaNii is a separate language or
dialect of Marathi, it is very similar to Marathi. The other major dialects
include Varhadii spoken in the Vidarbha region and Dangii spoken near
Maharashtra-Gujaraat border. In Marathi, the alphabet 'L' is abundantly used
in many verbs and nouns. In the Varhadii dialect, it is replaced by the
letter'y' which makes it quite distinct. As such the spoken language changes
from Mumbai (Bombay) to PuNe to Marathawada to Khandesh to Vidarbha, as one
travels from one region of Maharashtra to another. The Marathi script is
phonetic because there are no silent pronunciations. However, the spoken
Marathi is quite different from the formal, written Marathi found in many text
books. Marathi also has a very strong and powerful literary tradition starting
from the time of the saints upto modern day. This is the language of
Dnyaneshar, which can win bets with the nectar and hopefully it will keep
growing and blossoming forever.